Replies To: Google, how far is too far?

Re: Google, how far is too far?

Posted 07 December 2009 - 10:46 PM

This is actually pretty minor. If people want to complain about this, they really should have complained harder when Google starting tracking web history to begin with. I see what they are trying to do in providing a better experience, but I do think they are getting a bit evasive and sneaky about it. Almost makes me want to put my Google T-shirt (my favorite shirt) in my closet to never be taken out.... but that is almost.

Re: Google, how far is too far?

Posted 07 December 2009 - 10:53 PM

...Bing...

Other than that I really don't know what there is to say. I mean I have no idea if Bing is better about privacy, but at least they haven't been caught on it yet (to my knowledge). It sucks that Google chose to do this.

Re: Google, how far is too far?

Posted 07 December 2009 - 11:28 PM

Im not really seeing the privacy threat here. People dont want to sign up for a Google account but everyone wants their searches to return more results based on what more they are looking for. I hate searching for something and then end up getting totally irrelevant search results. I seen nothing them selling this to third parties or using any of the information to market products against us or start ad campaigns targetted at us. Im sure it could in the future be used for this but right now Google is the biggest search engine available. Millions use it and millions want better search results rather then having to go through several pages to find what they want.

Re: Google, how far is too far?

Posted 08 December 2009 - 12:46 AM

Cookies have been around and are used alllll the time to track user activity on a site. Google is not doing anything new, it is just new for them to use the cookie data without specifically logging in. This is another example of people freaking out because they don't understand the nature of the internet, not because Google is doing anything malicious.

You can block the cookies through your browser
You can block the cookies from Google's own preferences
Google is completely open about what they are tracking and how they are tracking it
It provides a huge way to boost search accuracy

Given the huge amount of information and control Google has over most peoples internet traffic, I can see why some people would freak out. So far they have shown no signs about doing anything shady, and you'd give as much control over tracking your search results to any other company. You think Microsoft (Bing) has a better track record at consumer privacy then Google??

Re: Google, how far is too far?

Posted 08 December 2009 - 06:34 AM

Well, I know of one case in America were a women hired a hit man to kill her husband and they caught her by looking at her Google search history (the idiot looked up "hit man for hire"). That's funny, but the fact of the matter is, it's perfectly ok for Google to do this as we are using their service.

Re: Google, how far is too far?

Posted 08 December 2009 - 06:39 AM

mocker, on 8 Dec, 2009 - 05:46 PM, said:

Cookies have been around and are used alllll the time to track user activity on a site. Google is not doing anything new, it is just new for them to use the cookie data without specifically logging in. This is another example of people freaking out because they don't understand the nature of the internet, not because Google is doing anything malicious.

You can block the cookies through your browser
You can block the cookies from Google's own preferences
Google is completely open about what they are tracking and how they are tracking it
It provides a huge way to boost search accuracy

Given the huge amount of information and control Google has over most peoples internet traffic, I can see why some people would freak out. So far they have shown no signs about doing anything shady, and you'd give as much control over tracking your search results to any other company. You think Microsoft (Bing) has a better track record at consumer privacy then Google??

This.

I hate when people freak over things like that. A lot of sites store information about what you do online, but it doesn't mean that information is used in a harmful way. If you are really stressed about your privacy, just turn your cookies off, it's not that hard. Google is just trying to help people without Google Accounts, which is a lot of people, and it's trying to help them achieve better search results and increase its popularity (I don't know about that one ). And, like mocker said, storing information in cookies is part of the nature of the internet. Infact, I love cookies! Nom, nom, nom...

Re: Google, how far is too far?

Posted 08 December 2009 - 08:12 AM

The other side of this is how it will impact SEO within web sites. If everyone has this feature enabled by default and doesn't know it then they will get more and more customised results so even if you got your page rank high in standard page ranking people wont see it if the normal thing for people to click is something else, although I know this is a drastic example it could happen.

Re: Google, how far is too far?

I know that there isn't any privacy on the internet, but at least we could keep the illusion up, right...?

This move is basically what the major news networks do, they pick and choose what information to disseminate, which is fine, it's their prerogative, but if the purpose of a search engine is to merely provide results unbiased-ly, then this move is a step in the wrong direction.

If they wanted true unbiased information, then they don't need any filter unless they were/are imposed by the users themselves.

edit: This makes perfect sense if you are logged into your Google account. Otherwise, why? Don't give me the cookie speech, I know how the internet works.

Re: Google, how far is too far?

Posted 08 December 2009 - 08:26 AM

There's not really anything new here in terms of privacy concerns. Google has always stored search requests and they've always cookied anonymous users. Now they're just using that in a user-visible way.

Sethro117, on 8 Dec, 2009 - 12:28 AM, said:

I seen nothing them ... using any of the information to market products against us or start ad campaigns targetted at us.

You might not see it, but if you think they're not doing that (or at least working on it), then you're kidding yourself. Why do you think they bought Teracent? Online ad targeting is very big right now, and Google is sitting on a goldmine of intent-targeting data. They'd be fools not to use it. Of course, that's not inherently evil - you could reasonably argue that providing more relevant ads is actually a valuable service to users. But let's not pretend that they don't have a financial motive too.

Re: Google, how far is too far?

I was going to make a comment about PsychoCoder being so far up a certain company's bunghole that he probably tasted curtains, but I changed my mind.

That was probably a good idea

** On Topic **

I'm not up anyone's ass as you put it, I just dont like the idea that even when I'm not logged into my Google account (which is quite frequent) that they're tracking what I search for, then scew the results based on that data. I prefer to see the best results, not something they generate based on information they took without my knowledge (If you dont read Google's official blog you would have never known about this, and I imagine the Average Joe down the street doesn't read their blog thus doesn't know).

Raynes you seem to hold it against a person if they support a company, is this because of some insecurity on your part, you have to put down others in order to feel better about yourself?